5 ms·
Wow... I used to watch a youtuber clean his tools with a bottle labeled as "Isopropyl Alcohol, AKA IPA" I always thought he was making fun of IPAs as in the bee
by mslack616 6y ago
Wow... I used to watch a youtuber clean his tools with a bottle labeled as "Isopropyl Alcohol, AKA IPA" I always thought he was making fun of IPAs as in the beer style. I feel so dumb hahaha x_x
- smnrchrds 6y agoWait until you hear about International Phonetic Alphabet.
- gumby 6y agoWe need to expand the TLA space. The only options I can think of are increasIng the number of letters and redefining “T” to “tetra” or even “thirty”. Time to get started on a new RFC
- stickfigure 6y agoPerhaps consider a FLAX? Four letter acronym, experimental.
- gumby 6y agoThat will only work until the RFC is approved, at which time the X will be dropped.
- mkr-hn 6y agoYou can never have too many The Last Airbender spinoffs.
- foolmeonce 6y agoI guess I'm still not getting TLA, since my Temporal Logic of Actions model says there should only be 17 valid spinoff states.
- Sharlin 6y agoETLAs got you covered: https://wiki.c2.com/?ExtendedThreeLetterAcronym https://wiki.c2.com/?ExtendedThreeLetterAcronym Although I'd like to see something like XTLAs, for eXtensible Three Letter Acronyms.
- jfk13 6y agoHave you checked out the Unicode character repertoire recently? There are a lot more than 26 letters to play with.
- gumby 6y agoWe have to restrict outprselves to phonetic alphabets, abjads, and abugidas else they can’t truly be “acronyms”
- kens 6y agoMy theory is that three-letter acronyms are so popular because they are strike a balance between length and ambiguity. I.e. two-letter acronyms are too ambiguous, but four-letter acronyms are too long for the uniqueness benefit. Most of the remaining ambiguity of three-letter acronyms could be avoided if people didn't get upset about redundant acronym expansion: "I cleaned with IPA alcohol after having an IPA ale." [1] RAS syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome
- lonelappde 6y agoMost people don't care about RAS syndrome, except semi-intelligent people who think grasping at (incorrect) pedantry proves they are smart.
- samatman 6y agoDepends on the acronym for me. ATM Machine grates on my sensibilities, since we all know what an ATM is and calling it a "machine" is both redundant and low-information. It's like calling an ATV an ATV vehicle (which I have never heard): would you call a truck a truck vehicle? PIN number on the other hand, I'm fine with. A pin is a small piece of steel used in sewing, a PIN number is a number you type into an ATM.
- DonHopkins 6y agoThat's a bunch of BS shit! ;)
- vikramkr 6y agoI think people stop parsing ATM as an acronym and start parsing it as just the name of a thing. Which is understandable. When I see ATM I dont think ... I just realized I forgot what the A and T stand for. Apparently automated teller? Perfect example I guess. As far as I'm concerned, ATM is just the name of the thing. And I parse it as such, so ATM machine isn't redundant since ATM doesnt point to "automated teller machine" in my mind. It just points to "ATM." I also find misuses of RAS syndrome fun. AAV vector isn't RAS syndrome. It stands for adeno associated virus vector. But people are eager to jump on whatever pedantry they think they can find, makes them feel smart I guess.
- billfruit 6y agoIPA the parent refers to is the "India Pale Ale", a categorization of Beer used in the UK.
- djrogers 6y agoIt’s used quite frequently in the US too - especially by those with beards in flannel shirts.